


The Three Drifters

by VampirePaladin



Category: Wild ARMs 3
Genre: Gen, Hostage Situations, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-20
Updated: 2015-12-20
Packaged: 2018-05-07 21:41:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,192
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5471693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VampirePaladin/pseuds/VampirePaladin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Three drifters take a group of children hostage.  A single woman walks in to deal with them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Three Drifters

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DarkSeraphim](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarkSeraphim/gifts).



The children were crying. They sat together, huddled in the back of the ruins. They weren’t hurt in any serious way, at worst one red haired girl had skinned her knee when she fell. The children cried because they were cold, hungry and scared. Two women and a man waving ARMs around didn’t help much either.

“The brats are bawling again,” John said. His hand twitched his by his pistol style ARM every time there was an unexpectedly loud noise.

“They’re kids, what do you expect?” Diana said. She stood by the door, her brown eyes focused on the hallway. It was the only entrance that anyone would be able to get to them. The old walls were too thick to be broken through without explosives strong enough to kill the children as well.

“Just relax. John keep your twitchy hands off your ARM. We’ll only get the gella if the children are alive and relatively unharmed. Otherwise you get your mobs and bounties on your head,” Kate said. She was sitting on what remained of an ancient pillar. She didn’t look up from her disassembled ARM as she spoke. Once, her ARM had malfunctioned in the middle of a shootout and almost got her killed. Now she was always taking it apart and putting it back together again to make sure it still worked.

“Someone’s coming,” Diana said. She brought the ARM’s stock up tight against her shoulder. “Put your hands up where I can see them. Walk nice and slowly. If I see those hands drop I’m gonna fill you full of holes.”

A young woman walked into the room. Her brown hair was pulled into a braid. She wore a well-cared for purple skirt with matching jacket over a new white blouse. A pair of revolver type ARMs rested in the holsters on her hips.

Kate had her ARM back together and pointed at the woman in seconds. She eyed her up and down. The girl had the look of a drifter to her, but the age of her clothing said that she didn’t have much money to her. That meant either an outlaw or a pretty poorly skilled drifter then.

“John take her ARMs. We wouldn’t want her to get any dumb ideas about thrilling heroics now, would we.”

John was up and next to the woman. He grabbed her revolvers and threw them on the stone floor out of easy reach of the woman.

“What brings you here, partner?” Kate asked.

“I’m here to make sure the children are unharmed.”

“All seven of them alive and crying,” Kate said. “Do you have the layline crystal?”

“No, I’m sorry. The villagers wanted to make sure the kids were alright, first.”

“If they don’t get us the crystal then-“

“John, hush, adults are speaking,” Kate said as she shot the other man a threatening look. “So, they send an expendable drifter to make sure all of them are alive and to see if we would kill you. Smart of them, dumb of you to take the job.”

The young woman gave a pained smile, “I needed the gella and I don’t think you three want to kill anyone.”

“We’ve killed people before,” Diana said.

“Oh, I know you have. I’ve heard all about you. But I’ve never heard of you three killing after getting what you wanted.”

“Can I ask a question? For myself, not the villagers.”

Kate nodded.

“Why do you want a layline crystal anyways? They are rare and valuable, but there isn’t a market for them. You can’t use them with your ARMs or with a sandcraft. So why have you been going around collecting them?”

John and Diana both looked at Kate. Kate never took her eyes off of the young woman. 

“Just know that it is important to us.”

The three of them had tried to warn others about the evil that they had accidentally released. They had begged for layline crystals to stop it. No one had believed them, called them insane or worse. 

“You are trying to stop Ragu O Ragula after you released him from the Abyss,” the woman said it calmly and plainly.

“We aren’t crazy,” Diana said.

“I believe you.”

“You do,” it sounded more like John was asking a question. He let his hand drop away from his ARM’s holster.

“I do. You three have done some nasty things, but what Ragu o Ragula can do is worse. I’ve seen the ruins of Sandy Valley. Not many people made it out of there alive, did they? I can get you what you need and faster.”

“How?” Kate asked.

“I’m going to be taking something out. Don’t shoot me.” The woman brought her arms down slowly. She pulled a small brown bag from one of the pouches hanging on her belt. It looked like the type of bag that a child might use to keep their marbles in. She handed it over to John, the only one with free hands.

He opened it and looked inside. His eyes grew wide and his jaw dropped open. Inside were layline crystals of every variety, even the rare ones.

“How did you get so many? They take years to form and only at specific points on the right laylines,” John said.

“I have my own ways. These aren’t stolen and I don’t need them as much as you three do. Keep them, let the children go, and don’t ever resort to doing anything like this ever again.”

Kate lowered her ARM and held a hand out. John tossed the bag to her and she looked inside, making a rough count of how many were in there.

“Why?”

“Because I know what kind of damage Ragu O Ragula can do. Because I don’t think you three are really evil people. Because I want to give you three the chance to make things right.”

Kate nodded, “Alright, we accept.”

“I’ll make sure the children get home.”

“Thank you,” Kate said.

The young woman picked up her revolvers and reholstered them. She got the children up and led them out of the ruins.

Kate, John, and Diana waited awhile before they left. The three returned to where they had left their horses. There was a brief discussion before they picked a direction, mounted and rode off.

“They are leaving,” Clive said. He was watching through the scope of his rifle from a hill nearby.

“Virginia shouldn’t be taking this kind of risk,” Gallows said.

“Ragu O Ragula is going to kill those three,” Jet said.

Virginia rode up to her teammates on her white horse and dismounted. “I walked the children to the edge of town.” All four of them still had bounties on their heads.

“It’s going to take a long time to replenish all those gems with the Mediums,” Gallows said.

“I know, but we at least have the Mediums. We can make more easily,” Virginia said.

“You do know you just sent them to their deaths,” Clive said.

“Maybe, but if that is the way they want to fly then I won’t stop them. Besides, they might win, after all, we did.”

**Author's Note:**

> Since Wild Arms 2 had a hostage situation with the kids being named after Marvel characters I decided to name the hostage takers after DC characters.


End file.
